Attitude towards finance and financial attitude are very different constructs. Despite the popularity of the latter, it has recently been subject to criticism. Following Di Martino and Zan (2010), the former explicitly considers emotions and beliefs (about self and finance) and the mutual relationship between them. At present, there is a paucity of evidence on how ‘attitude toward finance’ may impact financial knowledge: this is a new area of inquiry in academic literature. Research is at a preliminary stage, although the jigsaw of financial literacy is receiving greater attention worldwide. This study measures individual attitudes towards finance and determines the effects of this profile on financial knowledge level. It uses about 500 economics students in Italy as sample respondents. It is based on a structured questionnaire survey as a data collection method. The data is analysed using Structural Equation Modeling. A significant positive correlation is found between financial knowledge and attitude toward finance. The direction of causality is found to be from attitude toward finance to financial knowledge, and this finding suggests that attitude toward finance can play an important role in financial education. Among the various dimensions of attitude toward finance, emotional disposition towards finance, and secondly, the self-confidence level, are the most influential factors on economic students’ financial knowledge level. Gender is also found to be closely correlated to both financial knowledge and attitude toward finance. Findings mainly suggest the importance of attitude toward finance on financial knowledge. For policymakers, the results of this study could indicate new ways of solving the financial illiteracy problem.

Exploring ‘attitude toward finance’ as a factor predicting financial literacy is a new area of inquiry in academic literature. This study is a preliminary investigation of attitudes toward finance among a sample of students in higher education in Italy. It uses ten focus group discussions as data collecting method. Respondents are a total of 98 learners attending the Faculty of Business and Economics in a large University in  northern Italy, majoring in the areas of Finance, Accounting, or Marketing. The aim of this study is to assess the state of the art of the beliefs, feelings and self-perceptions of the target group regarding financial matters and practices, and to generate a questionnaire to measure attitudes toward finance in future quantitative studies. A Chi-Square analysis is used to analyse the collected data and determine if there are significant associations between students’ attitudes towards finance and characteristics like gender, level of study (first or second cycle degree) and faculty major. The research findings suggest that, even in a homogeneous cluster like our study population, the profile of attitude toward finance is not uniform. Overall, no significant differences are found between male and female students. Education level does not seem to significantly affect the construct either. However, the faculty major impacts on students’ attitude toward finance. Policy implications and suggestions for further work are discussed.

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